Palestinian woman mobilises community during eviction – Lebanon

YOU ARE HERE:
Home / Palestinian woman mobilises community during eviction – Lebanon

In 2010, Houda, a Palestinian widow with a son and daughter, was forced to abandon her home in the Palestinian gathering, or informal settlement, of Jal al Baher after the land on which their house was situated was sold. The new owner offered the family US$20,000 to leave the house. When they refused they were summoned to court in the city of Tyre.

Houda sought help from an NGO, Popular Aid for Relief and Development (PARD).

“We organised protests. We blocked the road and were on the internet. We protested even in heavy rain and we contacted the media and journalists. I organised this with other women – other organisations helped. The landowner was shamed because of the protests. We protested for two months. They wanted to give us money but we wanted a house so he took us to see some houses and none of them was good enough. We saw three houses and then we saw this one, which cost US$85,000. He bought it from a Palestinian. When we left our house in Jal al Baher, we cut down the trees in the garden and sold the timber. We told the landowner’s representative, “We raised these trees like our children. We will not leave them to you!” I am sure, if we were men, he would have fought us.”